Latest Jobs Numbers Reveal More Than Just One Bad Month

Even the Left can’t sugar coat America’s latest jobs numbers. Employment numbers were on the upswing for the past six months, but things took a turn for the worse with only 142,000 jobs created in August, well under the 200,000-225,000 that many experts predicted and the worst month of 2014.

And while the unemployment rate dropped .1%, most of that is due to individuals leaving the workforce, not because of employment.

Additionally, the Labor Market indicated that average weekly hours worked are still at 34.5, showing that employers haven’t found any good reasons to increase hours or offer overtime work.

Why has our nation’s economic recovery been so sluggish over the past few years? The Obama Administration’s unfriendly business policies, primarily Obamacare, have been a major problem.

Jobs are worst for lower-income workers, who are most likely to have their hours cut or lose their jobs because of these policies.

Obamacare mandates and penalties make it difficult for businesses to afford as many full-time workers. And it’s only getting worse in this regard. Starting in 2015, employers will be required to offer qualifying health benefits to all full-time employees, or they will face a $2,000 penalty tax.

It’s not just Obamacare that’s the problem. As economist Peter Morici wrote, it’s also this Administration’s “big spending stimulus policies and the Fed’s obsession with pumping money into a moribund New York financial industry.”

Another problem for businesses under Obama are needless, expensive regulations that make it extremely difficult for small businesses to stay afloat and hire as many employees as they’d like. This also discourages entrepreneurship, which is responsible for creating about 3 million new jobs every year – and business creation is on a steep decline right now.

As fast food workers strike across the country for a $15/hour minimum wage – with the support of the President — it doesn’t seem as though they understand the economic consequences that a wage change of such significance would have on the job market.

It’s essential now to demonstrate the connection between Obama’s penalizing policies and lack of jobs and full-time employment. Conservatives should use August jobs numbers to showcase the consequences of anti-business policies and uplift the importance of eliminating job growth barriers like Obamacare in the future.